Heleus Fallen
by artoria97
Summary: Kiera Ryder is seconds away from solving the mysteries of the Scourge - and she is torn away. Now, with humanity at the edge of survival, Ryder must weigh killing Titans against building a new future for humanity.
1. Chapter 1

**Crunch**

 **Crunch**

 **Breath**

 **Crunch**

The light was strange. Vaguely reddish, while the sky was more green than it should have been. Alien, but right, for now. Criminal and terrible and toxic… but a home, for those who would brave it.

Kiera raised her arm and tried to block out the scorching sun of Govorkam, the F-class scorcher that threatened Outcast, Nexus, and Angaran alike. Bright, too bright… but a rest for the wicked, for now.

 _The Vaults were clear, and Meridian awaits_

They were so _close_. Eos, Voeld, Havarl, Ditaeon, even New Tuchanka - all the worlds were close to perfect harmony. Kiera wasn't supposed to hear this - Suvi had tried so hard to keep this from her - but the Initiative was even going to name the first world after their Dad, when all of this was done.

 _Dad! Mom! Don't put this on me..._

Kiera put that aside, while she climbed the ridge, Jaal and Peebee behind her. Peebee had been hinting and gasping and whining

- _don't think about her breasts don't think about their perfect roundness and_

And oh no, now she's just going to another Remnant site and there's no Rem-tech there and can we go to Meridian already?

Well. Now Gil is going to have a kid, and Liam's had his movie night. Kallo was actually touched when you "cried" over his body - apparently, you've got some acting chops. But now Peebee has shared your bed for three weeks now, and you can't deny her charms.

There they are. Two Observers, four Assemblers, two Breachers. And a fuckload of Kett. Two Destined, at least.

 _private channel_ "Pathfinder. There is a Kett signal in the Remnant camp. You may wish to initiate hostilities. I recommend you destroy the Remnant before you attempt to address the Kett."

"Jaal, Grenade on the Kett. Peebee, Pull on the Assemblers. Leave the Observers to me."

"Oh, yes, and you're just going to throw a biotic signal, no? What will Lexi think?" Jaal turned his head and just stared at me. He wouldn't stop me, but he would always question.

I grinned at Jaal, activated my biotics, and threw myself off the cliff.

"She'll think I'm being stuuuuuupid - whoooooooo!"

I twisted in midair, bringing my arms and legs forward, and **CHARGED** on top of the unsuspecting Remnant Assemblers before me -

 **THROW  
CHARGE**

-And, after sending his friend flying for twenty meters, thrust my omnitool straight into the second Assembler, who reached nowhere… nowhere...

Jaal's foot stepped on the brains leaking out of the sack of flesh. He could not think of them as Angara. Exaltation had destroyed them - they were "exalted" and thus wronged. He found the Destined, and remembered the flowers of Havarl

-the beauties of Heleus

- **I HEAR YOU, PATHFINDER**

Peebee looks at you as you look around you, shaken by the voices in your head-

There are the corpses of two Observers, four Assemblers, and four Breachers - and there was one Ascendant - I just couldn't get them done in time.

I grin, seeing the Kett before me.

"Annihilation! Charge!"

I built up the Annihilation around me and-

"Pathfinder, the Scourge is inbound - get to the Nomad!"

"Pathfinder - no - God help us!"

It came -

It destroyed

It… awakened?

Tendrils that look like God coming toward me and -


	2. Chapter 2

Whooooooooshhh

That's pretty nice. I'm falling-

Uh-

*Emergency protocol!*

Emergency protocol activated.

Reactor - online

Sensors - online

Weapons - online

All systems nominal

Welcome Pathfinder. Mission clock is-

Mission source clocks not available. Assigning default time as Mission Clock 00:00:06. Initiating emergency procedures.

WAKE UP

Kiera shook her head inside her suit. She was falling - falling incredibly quickly.

"Holy shit. Holy goddamn what the fuck is going on I -"

"Pathfinder. Please follow protocol. You are falling."

"Uh, what the fuck? SAM?"

"Pathfinder, you are falling at terminal velocity. Focus on survival. You are currently equipped for VANGUARD. Please use your biotics to slow your fall."

"What's going on?"

"Apply force NOW Pathfinder"

SHIT

Kiera applied as much of her power as she could. She fell short and kept falling. A world of green and blue and brown and grey spun around her - this was wrong. Where was the Hyperion Signal? Where was the Vault signal? Shit, where was anyone?

"Uh, SAM?"

"I am compensating for your biotic regeneration cycle . Pathfinder, apply force in three, two, one NOW"

Kiera concentrated as hard as she could, running her will through her arms, her legs, reducing her mass and - LANDING! And probably no broken bones! Yes! Habitat 7, eat your heart out, I beat you!

"Pathfinder, please let go."

Kiera let go, and collapsed in a heap on sweet, sweet soil.

"Pathfinder Kiera I cannot contact the Tempest. I cannot contact Ark Hyperion or the other Arks. You must- must- must-"

"SAM?"

"SAM?"

"SAAMM?"


	3. Chapter 3

Abandoned, Kiera panicked. She looked around. Green - clearly not Kadara. Okay, but... which golden world could it be? None of the golden worlds had borne out. So... where was she?

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitohfuckshit

STOP

Taking a breath, Kiera tried to stop her shaking. For a moment, she remembered - Doctor Gernsback, right before her first deployment to the Arcturus Relay. At the time, his shaved head, mustache, and prodigious beard made her think of despots of old. But now, she remembered - his squeaking, academic voice-

"Don't panic. Don't panic. If you take nothing from our lesson, it's not to panic. Wait. You may actually be terribly injured, and your endorphins are helping you ignore it. _WAIT_. You will not help anyone if you're injured. Be very careful - try to move your fingers, then your toes, and be sure you can move them before you move. Then test arms, and legs. Slowly turn your head - and again, only do this if you're assigned as a first responder. If you have any pain, at all, STOP. Cry out for help. It's better to cry and be okay than to move and sever a nerve that will help you live."

Kiera flashed to her memories of HUSTL-3. The vaguely hypnotizing patterns on the Turian's face had captured her attention, but she paid attention just enough to remember-

"-safe. The principal knowledge of first aid is ABCD:  
A: Airways open. Keep the victim's airway open if it's at all obstructed.  
B: Breathing restored - if the victim isn't breathing, use your mask and get oxygen in there. Get oxygen in the lungs, now.  
C: Circulation maintained - if you're keeping oxygen flowing, but you can't feel a pulse at the wrist or at the third temporomandibular joint for dextro species, start CPR.  
D: Dextro-check. Know your species - is it dextro or levo? Do not give rescue packs to the wrong group. Give no invasive intervention without knowing the proteins."

Trying not to panic, even with the spiderwebs crossing her faceplate, Kiera went through the motions. Fingers - moving. Toes - moving. Okay. Arms - she cheated. She moved her aching arms - nothing broken, so far - and activated "Helmet - fix" on her omnitool. The cracks disappeared as she barely avoided passing out - she realized, moments later, that she had actually passed out holding her breath and was gasping for air.

 _Daddy, why?_

Kiera slowly moved her arms, and her legs, and her neck, and discovered she was bruised. Her head... her head was full of noise, but she could move.

 **THUD**

She blinked, and looked around. There were walls - fitted clay bricks. European, probably. Also, wooden supports, and smooth white finishes... uh, early concrete? Or... primitive drywall? She wasn't sure. She knew it looked "Elizabethan," or something like that. There had been dramas - the Doctor helping Shakespeare - Kiera was no "Blackamoor" but she knew being out of time.

 **THUD**

She still had her Asari biotic sword - Cora had signed off on that one. The Sandstorm Rifle - with Peebee's Rem-tech, it shot lasers but carved things out. Liam had shouted out "I'M FIRING MALAYSIA" when he first found it out... nobody knew why, but it worked.

 **THUD**

Half the buildings were destroyed - burnt, knocked in half, or otherwise demolished. It was as if a thousand trebuchets had launched payloads and had been suddenly silenced. The fires had long since guttered out. Now there were just... remnants.

 **THUD**

Kiera struggled to her feet, her mind half-vacant - where was SAM - and her body half-wrecked from falling out of the sky. Forget biotics, where are we? What's going on? Where's the Tempest - hello? Hello? Anyone out there? Calling all frequencies - Nexus, Angaran - where are you?

 **THUD**

"Archon. Archon, I... have intelligence. I'm willing to-"

 **THUD**

A massive foot, easily a half a meter tall, slammed into the ground. Another followed, and a slack-jawed humanoid stepped into an avenue. The ground gave way like normal, and the cobblestones turned to dust as normal, but the eyes were empty and the mouth was... animal... the face was almost without a soul.

 **THUD**

The second foot hit the earth and... nothing. The form stood almost 4 meters tall, or over... Kiera couldn't judge. It looked like a massive, deformed, childlike human... with nothing dangling. There was no penis. There were no defined buttocks. There was no... well, it didn't look like there was a vag. A human without genitals, and deeply deformed - just looking at it was repulsive. How could you have a race without...

 **THUD**

The next foot slammed into the ground, and it was answered with fire. Massivve stones came raining down from the heavens on ballistic trajectories - even Kiera's untrained eyes could follow the arc as a stone found an entitity and exploded its head

-But

Kiera watched, in horror, as one of the great shambling masses of flesh shook off its damaged head, let it fall to the ground, and... grew a new one. A new head.

It fucking shed its head and grew a new one what the fuck

The cannons fired, again, and again, and all Kiera could think was "Where are you?"

 **THUD**

A foot came crashing down, and all she could think was "Please save me"

And time stopped.


	4. Chapter 4

**FLASH**

 **WHIP**

 **FWOOSH**

Kiera looked up and saw the impossible – a woman, about her age, tied to impossibly thin strings on an impossibly anchored harness, swinging with segmented swords, dodging at unbelievable speeds with huge plumes of gas, swinging around and

 **SLICING**

a wedge out of the creature's neck. Its impossible mouth opened, contorted in a rictus of pain, as the wedge and the creature started to evaporate. Kiera looked, mouth agape, as this slender girl brought this titanic creature to death, defeating its regenerative powers.

"SAM… suit… please store that weakpoint for future tactical encounters."

" _Tactical weakpoint stored. Require additional scans."_

"Sto… sto… Daisy, daisy give… sto-ring… ana…. Give me… analyzing..."

Kiera flattened herself into a doorway and tried to think. Basic computational resources were available – her omni-tool could do repairs, and she had local data storage. SAM was… Quantum entanglement past the basic slit-particle-wave experiment was hard to understand at the best of times, and now she had no idea where she was after getting a massive dose of Scourge.

She whispered,

"Suit, background radiation and Scourge exposure."

"Authorization?" the annoyingly pleasant mechanical voice responded.

"The bitch inside you! Don't make me… ugh, Kiera-pleasehaveflyingkittensinHeleus-mission15"

"Bypassing SAM Node. Background radiation is 3.6 mSv per annum. Standard manual requires antirad treatments in five years. Scourge raaaaaadddddiiiiaaaaatttttiooonnnnn….."

Everything shut down. The lights, the pleasant tingling of the electricity assisting her biotics, everything. The N7 suit locked up, and all Kiera could do was vaguely thrash.

" **Reactor Online**  
 **Sensors Online**  
 **Weapons Online**  
 **Systems compromised**  
Pathfinder, storage compromised at Node 1x45C067 – Scourge Radiation acquisition data. Buffer overflow data. This unit does not have computational complexity to evaluate Node and semantic data. Mission clock: 00:02:27. Please restrict inquiries until Level 5 maintenance can be completed."

Buffer overflow – it couldn't handle the data. The Scourge ripped apart stars, turned planets into parodies of themselves, and the inbuilt processor couldn't handle the exposure stats? Kiera could only hope it was a cruel joke, or something. The base radiation was already post-nuclear holocaust; Suvi's God only knew what the Scourge had done…

"Okay. Suit, track major infrared sources. Overlay. Provide Biotic electricity, program VANGUARD. Superuser. Confirm and Comply."

"Infrared sources tracked. Reactor online, providing Biotic electricity. SU VANGUARD – OVERRIDE , . Confirmed and complied. Awaiting verbal, kinetic, and behavioral prompts."

Kiera's vision moved into a kaleidoscope of colors – infrared, rendered into red→ blue. She turned the corner, and there was the pile of flesh, evaporating like a comet in a blue giant – in front of her, the warrior spirit who saved her – and too far back, dozens like her, trying to follow that star, burning low and cautious. Kiera saw the problem.

"Oh. Oh, shit, someone's going to get killed. Let's go."

 **PULL**

 **THRUST**

Why was this girl leaving her teammates – how could she generate that much thrust? Even in atmosphere… quick calculation – there's not enough specific impulse to get to that tower, how would she get there without biotics? Using gravitation? But she's going too fast, how will she get-

The exhausts emptied, and the girl made of fire fell, losing her exhausts, falling, slamming into an awning-

Kiera pushed herself –

 **PULL**

 **THROW**

 **THRUST**

The girl in Kiera's arms looked alarmed, halfway between the cobbles and the roofs. "Nan- desu ka? Was machst-"

"Hold on"

 **BARRIER**

They smashed into the wall, the wall of biotic force the only thing between them and complete pulverization. Kiera fogged her mask with her breath, her shields barely holding out, her charge held within her electro-biotic cage. The vaguely Asiatic woman – girl – woman - staggered, catching her breath – and staggered to her knees. She looked up, and Kiera's heart nearly stopped.

Kiera looked at her face, and saw despair. It was exactly the face that the young technician she'd seen, that first day on the Nexus, had before he saw her uniform. There was no hope. There was nothing. It was the face of someone who had lost a reason to live, and was just living out the motions – "brain says do, muscle does, fingers complain, muscle changes, brain changes, brain says do, repeat."

There was no hope in those eyes. Life was over.

 **THUD**

Another one of those 4 meter monstrosities moved forward, coming toward them. Blood dripped down its gullet, its belly distended by God-only-knew-what prey

 **THUD**

And the poor little bird whipped out of Kiera's arms, cables anchoring into the walls, swinging past any reasonable speed, flashing her swords – the dulled ones already thrown to the ground – her mouth contorted into the same rictus grin the titanic monsters already had. No mercy. No peace. No rest. Nothing but Krogan blood feud in a tiny, 5'6" frame, colliding at full speed with a massive frame of murder.

 **FLASH**

 **PULL**

 **SWORD**

Kiera barreled at astonishing speed at the Titan's right. The girl, to its left. Its arms kept flying, even after being severed, ruining someone's workshop or fruit stand or livelihood. It bellowed, calling – to Kiera's infrared-enhanced eyes – several fellows patrolling what looked to be a city.

Only Kiera's enhanced senses heard the weeping-

"なぜ"

"Why?"

"なぜ, 足掻く"

"Why do I struggle?"

The girl tried to collapse, despite herself. She was done. The Titan was worming himself forward, biting, biting, biting. He was going to take her.

A cool, purple radiance enveloped them. The strange, armored tiny warrior smiled inside her… face? And said:

"私たちはお互いを持ち上げ"

"We lift each other up"

 **BARRIER**

 **BACKLASH**

 **SHOCKWAVE**

Kiera stood before the murdering, thrashing, worm of a titanic evil, the shield before her, waves of gravitic force thrashing, the power of a black hole concentrating in her mind when

 **YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**


End file.
